Liam’s Story

This personal experience story was kindly sent to me by JL, Trim, Co. Meath.

We were at the end of our tether with our six year old son, I’ll call him ‘Liam’. We had tried all sorts of things with regard to discipline, this was approximately 2 years going on and he was getting worse. His tantrums were very aggressive and he seemed to have no control over them, even to his own detriment. He has wrecked his own precious toys with amazing strength (coming from adrenaline, I guess) plus hit out at me, his Mother, violently. He could not take no for an answer without having a massive fit.

Outside of the home, he was causing trouble in junior infants and outside house playing with other kids. Things like biting, hitting and kicking etc, when he was told ‘no’ to something he wanted or when he didn’t get his way, he was like a simmering pot, ready to boil over, all the time.

We were on a waiting list for an assessment with the psychologist as we were sure something was fundamentally wrong.

About a month before we received the appointment for the assessment we were referred to Suzanne, by another of her clients. She asked us loads of questions about Liam’s history of illness and behaviour etc. I explained that Liam had been a very placid baby and at almost 4 years old, he became very agitated and aggressive towards us at home and towards other children. It would not take very much to spark off a huge tantrum, sometimes violent. Sometimes destructive and wrecking his own much loved toys even. He seemed intent on venting his frustration on whatever was in front of him. There was no getting through to him at all whatsoever. He brought us to tears of despair on occasion. It was very worrying. When I went on to answer the medical questions, it brought up that Liam had also been sick, occasionally, from the age of 3. He would get a temperature and be really lethargic every so often. I came to notice that these episodes lasted about 24 hours and soon he would be off bouncing around again. I also started to notice that they were approximately every 6 weeks.

Then one of the times, it could have been, maybe the ninth or tenth time that this happened Liam got really lethargic and wasn’t recovering, just speedily gettting worse. His temperature was higher than ever so I went straight to doctors. While in waiting room, he deteriorated further and he was actually floppy all over and now had a little rash on his chin. The moment the Dr. saw him she suspected meningitis and started treatment straight away. She sent us in to hospital in ambulance and the tests started and as the treatment had started, the hospital had to continue it though they then found out that it wasn’t meningitis but some other virus.

When Suzanne heard all this, she analysed all the information and she came back to tell me that her belief was that Liam had ‘heat’ in his organs, and the regular illness he had was gradually releasing the heat and when the large meningitis antibiotic was given, it pushed the hat down further into the organs and trapped it, so that Liam now had this going on inside him all the time. After the meningitis antibiotic, Liam never had the ‘six weekly’ illness again. So that seemed to make sense. Suzanne was very confident in her assessment of what had happened and also, to my amazement, very confident that this could be sorted out with a combination of specific herbs and acupuncture. I wasn’t so confident, but very hopeful (and distraught, at this stage).

Thankfully, Liam started to be calm within a matter of days of the treatment, and I would say the aggressive behaviour was almost completely gone, in two weeks. He was so much calmer and easier to talk to, he didn’t have the same explosions and frustration. He did have one side effect, which was, in the first week he had about three nights of being very very hot in bed, to touch him was like touching a very hot radiator. At first I was shocked at this and I contacted Suzanne immediately. She explained that this was the trapped heat escaping from Liam’s body. It was happening quite quickly and we were delighted and amazed at this little miracle happening.

There were a lot of behaviours to be relearnt with Liam, and he had his assessment with the psychologist but was, then, a different child, so no diagnosis came of that. He had a tough time over all for a year after the huge antibiotic but Suzanne has sorted it out for him. We still attend her on occasion as the acupuncture gives him great comfort and I hope that every child who is suffering these painful frustrations, for whatever reason, is given the opportunity of someone like Suzanne to help them. It’s not fair on the child or the rest of the family to be going through the despair it entails.